Arnold Schwarzenegger

The legend is well known: how an Austrian-born muscleman, having singlehandedly transformed the sport of bodybuilding into a national pastime, went on to conquer Hollywood. There, portraying a series of entertaining comic-book superheroes—from gargantuan cavemen to monster robots—he created a new kind of strong man. His characters were invincible, often brutal, yet betrayed, if one squinted, a certain vulnerability.

The formula proved highly bankable for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Blockbuster films such as The Terminator, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer and Commando grossed more than $100,000,000 each. And as the revenues rolled in, they made Schwarzenegger rich. His subsequent investments, mostly in real estate, enhanced his reputation for shrewdness. The record shows that he owns several apartment complexes in Los Angeles; that he sold a $10,000,000 investment property in Denver a few years ago; that he owns another $10,000,000 office block in midtown Santa Monica; and that he's thinking about developing a Chicago-style Merchandise Mart in California. Forbes magazine recently estimated his two-year income from investments and holdings to be approximately $26,000,000.

Such wealth, especially among the movie-star elite, is not unique. What sealed Schwarzenegger's grip on the American dream was his remarkable entry into society. In the spring of 1986, he walked off with one of the country's great romantic prizes, Maria Shriver. A niece of John F. Kennedy, Shriver had beauty, brains and breeding—and served to replace her groom's recently expired green card with the ultimate blue-blood credentials. The man who had won five Mr. Universe and seven Mr. Olympia titles had completed his conquests.

Yet this remarkable journey from Austrian weight room to international stardom has not been easy. Born 40 years ago in Graz, Austria, Arnold Schwarzenegger had a strict upbringing. His father was a military man who, after World War Two, became the district police chief; his mother also had a strong sense of discipline. Feeling penned in, he sought release in sports.

His father had wanted him to be a soccer champ, so at the age of 15, Schwarzenegger began lifting weights to strengthen his legs. He was taken with the regimen and began to study bodybuilding muscle by muscle—learning how each muscle worked, how to shape them. Soon he began to devote himself entirely to weight training. His obsession alarmed his parents, who eventually forbade him to go to the gym more than three nights a week. Undaunted, he built his own gym in an unheated room in the house. He watched Steve Reeves and Reg Park muscle movies. Enlisting in the army in 1965, after high school, he used his stint in the service as yet another vehicle for weight training. His dream, however, was to compete in America.

He arrived in the U.S. in 1967 with "little more than a gym bag" and high school English. Schwarzenegger knew that he had two things going for him: a charismatic personality and a strong will. "My desire," he stated in his autobiography, "was to train one whole year and beat everybody in America." The hard work paid off in the form of titles, most dramatically in 1970, when he was named Mr. Universe (for the fifth time), Mr. World and Mr. Olympia—a hat trick that no other professional bodybuilder has repeated in a single year.

In addition to his determination, Schwarzenegger also showed another trait in those early years: sly manipulativeness. During competition, he would use a variety of tactics to psych out his rivals. In the documentary Pumping Iron, he was shown playing on competitors' insecurities en route to grabbing the Mr. Olympia title. The New York Times, in a review of the movie, described Schwarzenegger's methods of "'[messing] up his opponents." ...He uses the guarded camaraderie that precedes the competition to play all kinds of one-up games."

Comfortable in his adopted land, Schwarzenegger began to think about making the United States his home. He had already evinced a shrewd head for capitalism, starting a weight-lifting mail-order-catalog business under the name Arnold Strong. Now, bored with the limited glories of competition, he became enamored of that tried-and-true American path to celebrity: movie stardom. Though prepared for a struggle in Hollywood, he got lucky fast. Running into a friend who was working on Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Schwarzenegger was invited to the set to meet the director. Altman eventually hired him as the character whose primary purpose was to beat up Elliott Gould. In the credits, he was billed as Arnold Strong.

Pleased with the experience, he began to take his budding acting career seriously, working with professionals on his accent, his voice, his talent—lessons he continues today. His major next appearance—in Stay Hungry, with Jeff Bridges and Sally Field—was his breakthrough film, earning Schwarzenegger a Golden Globe as best newcomer in films. From there, he was on to title roles, specifically in the Conan series.

But it was Schwarzenegger's portrayal of the title role in The Terminator, in 1984, that secured his fame: He was named International Star of the Year, and the movie was listed among the ten best films of the year by Time magazine. The subsequent top-grosser Commando—as well as Raw Deal and last year's Predator—confirmed his growing popularity. That popularity was not limited to the screen. He proved a charming and witty guest on his numerous appearances in front of The Tonight Show's TV cameras, just as he had charmed the camera in Pumping Iron. Yet, clearly, Schwarzenegger was a man who kept tight control of his cooperation with the media. Even after he had agreed to sit down for the Playboy Interview, it took months for him to slot it into his schedule. And when the summons finally came, it was abrupt. He called Playboy interviewer Joan Goodman in Los Angeles on a Tuesday afternoon and told her to take a Wednesday flight to Chicago, where he was making a film. Goodman reports:

"When we began the actual interview, he was pulling on a long, black Cuban Davidoff cigar, which he said had cost $25. Only half joking, he commented, 'Your time will be measured in stogies. When I finish one, the interview ends.'

"In that instance, Schwarzenegger was merely demonstrating the fine art of control—keeping everyone slightly off balance. He is one of the more finely tuned control freaks I have met in a career of celebrity interviews. He has said, 'The only thing that makes me nervous is when I don't get my own way'—and he means it.

"My first reaction to him was, there's a new Schwarzenegger on the scene. A normal-sized Schwarzenegger. He was 30 pounds off his top competition weight and ten pounds down from his previous movie low of 210 pounds. The planes of his cheeks looked taut and sharp, the waist narrowed and hard-toned. In other words, he looked as near to regular-sized as can be expected from a man who has spent his life developing his pecs, abs, glutes and quads to outsized proportions.

"He explained that his new size was tailored for his character in Red Heat, the movie he'd been shooting in Chicago. In the film, he plays a Moscow cop on the tail of a Soviet drug smuggler in the U.S. Although the film has the usual murder and mayhem woven into the script, Schwarzenegger was happy to defend it—as he does all his films.

"As you might expect, Schwarzenegger is a charmer with a slightly Teutonic sense of humor. He's old-fashioned and European with women. He won't let you pick up a check, he opens doors and he watches his language.

"I think he's probably at his best with men. A pal says he calls Schwarzenegger 'the elephant,' because he's a Republican. That, and because he never forgets his friends. Or his objectives."